A few days ago, under pressure from the international community, 20 trucks a day carrying humanitarian aid entered the besieged Gaza Strip; a tiny trickle of what’s urgently needed.
Our lives hang by a thread as Israel bombs us; the specter of death haunts us relentlessly.
Cell service and internet are all but severed. I finally manage to catch a bar of service and glimpse my class’s WhatsApp group, only to be confronted with the news of my classmate’s death, along with her family.
I send desperate “How are you?” messages to family and friends, relieved when someone replies they are “fine.” I understand that “fine” doesn’t mean they are safe and well, it simply means that they’re alive, at least for now.
I scroll through videos friends sent of Rimal Street, once vibrant with people and conversations, now lying in ashes. More grim news of losses streams in. My cousin’s son. My university professor and his family. Entire lineages–gone.
Israel’s military has struck health care facilities, ambulances, and United Nations schools. Patients, doctors, journalists, and students have all become fragments among the rubble.
We grew up together, and now we die together, over and over again.
After being pulled from the rubble, my sister Reem couldn’t speak for three days. It took her a week to walk; she still has a pronounced limp. Her arm is broken and burnt. She needs treatment but the hospitals are overwhelmed and can’t even attend to life-and-death cases.
Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, has a capacity of 700 yet is treating 5,000 patients, says Médecins Sans Frontières, with a dire lack of electricity and medical supplies.
Even before October 7, hospitals in Gaza lacked basic supplies and medical equipment. Palestinians lived a life of deprivation and suffering due to 16 years of a suffocating Israeli siege and naval blockade that the UN and rights groups have condemned as illegal.
We have been traumatized by more than a half-century of brutal Israeli military occupation and repeated, devastating military assaults since 2008.
I help my sister Esraa, a doctor, treat patients in UN schools sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people. I want to bring healing to all who suffer.
But how will I continue my studies when Israel bombed my university and killed my professors? Where will I practice medicine if our hospitals are destroyed, doctors killed, and our medical system ruined?
If the world does not act soon, there will be nothing left of it. Indeed, there will be nothing left of Gaza.
